Restoring juvenile offenders

John Futty, The Columbus Dispatch

Saturday

Mar 31, 2012 at 12:01 AMMar 31, 2012 at 9:24 AM

The terror on the face of a 15-year-old girl accused of a delinquency assault charge in Franklin County Juvenile Court reinforced Beverly Orazen's belief that there must be a better way to deal with low-level juvenile offenders.

The terror on the face of a 15-year-old girl accused of a delinquency assault charge in Franklin County Juvenile Court reinforced Beverly Orazen’s belief that there must be a better way to deal with low-level juvenile offenders.

Orazen and other members of BREAD, an interfaith social-activist group, observed the case this year as part of their continuing effort to gather information and advocate for changes in the juvenile-justice system.

Those efforts will culminate in what the group is calling a “restorative justice summit” from 9?a .m. to 1?p.m. today at the Rhema Christian Center, 2100 Agler Rd. on the North Side.

Representatives of Juvenile Court, the prosecutor’s office, the public defender and others who deal with juvenile crime in Franklin County are to attend the event and hear from national experts on restorative justice, a philosophy for addressing crime by repairing the harm it causes.

BREAD wants to use restorative-justice techniques to create a program for diverting some low-level juvenile offenders away from the court system.

“The program would work with the offenders and their supporters and family as well as the victims and their supporters and family,” Orazen said. “It seeks to restore the victim and help the offender realize that they’ve not only committed a crime against a person but against the community.”

Gill said BREAD’s initiative is consistent with the court’s efforts to improve and expand its program for diverting low-level offenders.

“If they develop a restorative-justice approach that works with our diversion program, that would be awesome,” she said.

One year ago, a study by the University of Cincinnati Corrections Institute criticized how the court’s probation department evaluated juvenile offenders. It found that some of the community-treatment agencies the court used were ineffective.

In particular, the report said the probation department didn’t follow “evidence-based practices” and was “not operating in a manner consistent with the practices that have been proven to reduce offender recidivism.”

The report so alarmed BREAD’s Crime and Violence Committee, of which Orazen is a member, that it began focusing on restorative justice as a way to develop an effective diversion program for the court.

Gill said the UC report was commissioned by the Juvenile Court judges because they wanted an objective evaluation of programs they wanted to improve. As a result of the study’s findings, the court is renegotiating contracts with its treatment providers to require the agencies to use “ evidence-based practices,” Gill said.

The court also has worked for the past 18 months with the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative.

“We need to continue to research and develop alternatives to detention, most particularly for low-level offenders,” Gill said. “Youths do better if they are not detained, particularly those who are entering the system for the first time for low-level offenses.”

Restorative justice aims to “save money and save individuals,” said Morris Jenkins, a professor of criminal justice and social work at the University of Toledo, who will speak at the summit.

The 15-year-old defendant whose case was observed by BREAD was charged with assault after she intervened in a feud involving her sister by punching a 13-year-old girl at the school-bus stop. It was the girl’s first offense.

To Orazen, the girl seemed like an ideal candidate for a restorative-justice approach, which would have had her work with community-based services and both families to heal the divide between the victim and offender. Instead, a magistrate, an assistant prosecutor, a defense attorney, a bus driver, a deputy, the victim and the offender spent an afternoon using expensive court resources.

“The 15-year-old now has a record, money was wasted, and there was no restoration,” Orazen said. “These people are still mad at each other.

“We want to restore relationships rather than making things worse.”

jfutty@dispatch.com

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